Elton Barry bid farewell to his wife and children at the age of 42, as he was being wheeled in for an emergency operation following a brain haemorrhage. He thought he was going to die. Four months later he walked 21 kilometres in three hours. He spoke to Sarah Carabott.

Three heart attacks and a stroke did not stop Elton Barry from completing the Malta half-marathon last Sunday. 

And now he has set his heart on another of his gruelling cycle challenges in aid of cancer research. If he is given the green light by doctors, this would be the sixth time he has taken part in the Alive Cycling Challenge, which he co-founded in 2012.

That year, Mr Barry, then only 36, suffered three heart attacks in as many days.

Doesn’t a man who survives an episode like that live in fear?

“The heart attacks ‘woke’ me up,” he said.

“I had spent most of the previous 14 years at work, travelling abroad from Monday to Friday, and spending only the weekends with my family. After the heart attacks I wanted to live. I still worked in IT and I kept up my hobbies. But once I had survived, I wanted to help others survive. I wanted to raise funds through cycling.”

Mr Barry recalls that he had taken up cycling around 2010 after suffering a knee injury and could no longer play football or run. By 2012, he was building up his endurance to be able to participate in a cycling fundraiser.

But his plans changed on June 29 of that year, when he woke up in the early hours with unbearable chest pain that only increased in intensity.

Mr Barry was immediately admitted to emergency, where he survived three heart attacks. While still undergoing tests, the one burning question in his mind remained: “When can I start cycling again?”

Three weeks later he was back on his bike and in December of that year he took part in a 135-kilometre cycling fundraiser for Puttinu Cares.

“It was pouring rain but I managed to cycle the whole way… with my wife Stephania and my two daughters trailing along in a car cheering me on. This was the longest track I had ever cycled and I wanted to keep up the momentum.”

Together with Nicky Camilleri, Miriam Abela Orland and Gerth Lapira, Mr Barry went on to set up the Alive Charity Foundation. In 2013, around 38 cyclists pedalled from London to Paris in aid of the Action for Breast Cancer Foundation, set up by the late Helen Muscat.

This first cycling challenge managed to exceed the €40,000 target by a whopping €15,000.

In 2015, the challenge was held in aid of children cancer research. Unlike the previous challenges, the cyclists did not cross the finish line beaming and laughing.

“We all had teary eyes at the sight of the children undergoing treatment at the finish line. If there was any one of us who had done the challenge as a hobby, from that day on their priorities changed.

“The children’s courage helped us press on harder.”

In all, the Alive Foundation has raised €525,000 for all kinds of local cancer research. This year, the cyclists will leave from Vienna, pedal through the Alps, and head to Milan.

The children’s courage helped us press on harder

Mr Barry hopes he will be able to join the 1,000-kilometre challenge, because, once again, his plans have been altered.

Last October, Mr Barry was meant to take part in a cycling fundraiser in aid of Malta’s Emergency Fire & Rescue Unit. But he never made it to the starting line.

Three days before, he had just picked his youngest daughter up from her first day at university and stopped at a gardening shop on their way home, when a throbbing headache became unbearable.

His wife picked them up but when she saw the state he was in, they headed straight to hospital.

“The last thing I remember is waking up at some point in the ambulance. My wife and kids were told that I was done for,” he says, swiping his hands against each other in a kaput gesture.

Mr Barry suffered a brain haemorrhage, caused by a fistula, which usually strikes in much older people.

He has no recollection of what happened in the following two weeks, but two days after the stroke, he underwent an emergency craniotomy to reduce the pressure. Even though he does not remember being wheeled into the operating theatre, recounting the ordeal brings tears to his eyes.

“For the first time I had to tell my wife and children goodbye. My youngest had just started university and my eldest was planning her wedding. I could have remained a vegetable.”

Stephania, also tearful, nods. She was accompanying him to fill in whenever he was lost for words. As a result of the stroke, Mr Barry suffered aphasia, and initially would get only two out of 10 words right when he tried to express himself. He used to call all the hospital staff “policeman”, without realising that he was not using the right word, for example.

Mr Barry’s family was told that he would only be able to walk three months later (mid-January). But by the end of the following week he was already on his feet and dragging his legs with the aid of a walker.

By the beginning of the fourth week since suffering the stroke, he was led to the hospital’s gym, where he immediately spotted a bike. Without being able to pronounce a word, he just headed straight to it.

“I pedalled for five minutes, and I was so happy.”

His wife believes that cycling – and the arrival of a new bike he ordered before the stroke – was his prime motivator.

But for a tearful Mr Barry, his main supporters were his family.

He has since undergone a cerebral angiogram for an endovascular embolization. Although he has now gone back to working full-time, he has had to “temporarily give up cycling” because of vision difficulties in his right side.

So instead, he enrolled for the half-marathon, which he completed in three hours last Sunday.

“I wanted to prove to other survivors who might feel that their life has stopped, that there is life after a stroke. After trauma, you can have a life, with limitations. But it’s still life.”

The Barry family remains grateful to the doctors and staff at Mater Dei Hospital for helping Elton recover.